Grey Sky
by Silmaril666
Summary: Nothing is ever truly black or white. When a war is raging, many are torn apart. In the midst of Second Wizarding War, Hailey and Ethan would have never thought their story would end up this way, and yet, one of them will have to give in at the end. This is another take at TDH, following life segments from two unknown characters. OC/OC. Romance/drama.


**Author's note** : I know it might not interest anyone as this story follows completely new characters, but I wrote this story years ago in my native language, and just decided to start over in English to give it another chance. I never stopped thinking about this story, as I always loved thinking about how other people could have been impacted by what happens in the Harry Potter books, and might have lived through it very differently from the main characters. I hope someone, somewhere, might read it and get what I tried to do! Many thanks to anyone who might take the time to look at it!

 **Narrative chronology** : This story won't follow a classic chronological order, but will keep going back and forth between past and present life segments. If it gets too confusing, feel free to let me know in the comments!

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 **Grey sky**

 **Chapter I: The wave that comes in**

His arm around her neck. His weapon at her temple. That's all she could focus on at that moment. She could feel him shaking against her, his rage sipping through his body and hers like a continuous electric chock right in the middle of the battlefield. Her back against his chest, her body shielding his, she was oblivious to the screams and terror around her, and to the light rain that was slowly falling on her face, writing lines of mud and blood on her light skin like on an oil painting given up to the elements.

She didn't know anymore. Didn't know what to do, what to think. She tried to search deep down in her stomach and her bones, but she was clueless. She felt drained and empty, as if she were an old shell waiting to be washed away from the sand by the next wave coming in. Should she give in to the wave? A shell couldn't do anything about waves and tides, but she knew she could. She knew she should. If only the wave wasn't so familiar. So tempting. So scary, and yet, somehow reassuring at the same time. Something she knew, that she was used to. Truth to be told, she wouldn't mind for the wave to swallow her entirely, if only it didn't threaten to swallow everything else with her. Everyone she loved. Everything she cared for. All she had been fighting for the past six years.

How did they get there? How did this weapon that she thought would always protect her, eventually turned against her? Not only that weapon was threatening her now, but it was also threatening one of her own, a dear friend that had no intention to back away from her and leave her to Him, no matter what. She had been turned into a human barricade by someone who should have been her shield, but whose path had taken to a very different place. A much darker place, if that sort of place did ever exist.

His arm around her neck was so tight that she could barely breathe. She could feel drops of cold sweat running down her neck, but quickly realised that these were not hers. The air was electric around them, not so much from the rainstorm coming at them, but from the hatred and fear coming out of the three bodies engaged in this silent battle. A battle of will. She had lost her will, but knew the two men had not. She could clearly read that anger and fear in her friend's eyes, facing her with his wand aimed at her and her assailant, torn and hesitant, obviously evaluating if it could take their enemy down without hurting her in the process. She knew that her friend should have given up on her and turned his back to help someone else already but...

*... but that's not what friends do, isn't it?* she could nearly hear her tormentor say in her head, as if somehow he could hear her thoughts and invade her mind.

Knowing with absolute certainty what was about to happen as if she had already read the last page of that book, she couldn't help but to close her eyes as tight as she could, hoping everything would play out differently if she didn't look, just like a child wishing away a monster from under the bed. But she knew her monster well enough.

When she felt the tip of his wand leave her head and his body tense against hers, she knew that it was over for her friend. No need to scream. No need to call his name and hope he was all right. She knew he wasn't. He had no protection, nowhere to escape to to be out of His wand's reach. No need to open her eyes either for the tears to start running down on her face, rushing down on her attacker's arm in complete silence. As if the tears suddenly burnt his skin, He released his grip on her throat and let her body fall to the ground, leaving her out of breath at His feet, her hands reaching for the slippery grass in front of her in a desperate attempt to gather up strength.

Her eyes now open, she finally caught sight of her friends' body lying just a few feet away from her, and stopped for a moment before starting to drag herself towards it. Before she could reach for it, she felt her assailant's powerful arms around her once more, holding her in a chaotic and brutal embrace, forcing her body away from the scene and dragging her towards the woods, to an unknown destination, but to a certain fate.

Not once she had the courage to look up to watch His face. But she knew his embrace, and could recognise the sound of his ragged breath anywhere, anytime. She could nearly tell what he was thinking, and how he felt, from the way his body moved and the way his grip was shifting on her arm as he was guiding her between the trees, into the dark of the forest.

"It will be over soon" he finally spoke, in a cold and deep voice, panting slightly from the exertion. "It will be over soon, kid, just like I promised..."


End file.
